just like Moby Dick, but shorter and less whale-oriented.

Post navigation

Legos And Smartphones: Out To Take Over The World

A while back, I ran across a list online of the things that the smartest people are worried about. I immediately felt like an idiot because the list consisted of things like whether we have outsourced too many skills to machines and not things I spend time worrying about like whether I am out of salsa and whether the chips I have for said salsa have gone stale or not.

I began thinking. There are a lot of worries associated with technology. From whether we spend too much time on social media to whether or not we can now survive without the internet, the future holds a great deal of technological concern.

As worrisome as that is, that is nothing compared to the Cubestormer 3.

Saturday, the Cubestormer 3, a robot made of a smartphone and Legos, managed to solve a Rubik’s Cube in 3.5 seconds. To put that into perspective, it took me longer just now to find that number in the article than it took this robot to solve a Rubik’s Cube, a puzzle that I myself have never solved. That is a full two seconds faster than a human being has ever solved this puzzle.

Why should we be worried? Simple: apparently, all our phones need to destroy us is access to building blocks.

Since I was a child, I have seen phones get smarter and smarter. I remember a time when the smartest thing a cell phone could do was allow you to play “Snake” (One of the best games ever, FYI) and help you text using T9. It couldn’t even do that well. It was a crapshoot every time you started to text. What was meant to say, “Hey, are you busy?” would often come out “Gex, bre xov atrw?”

Then, the smart phone came about. It could do things like turn you into a fruit-slicing ninja or a zombie-fighting plant. Even more alarming, it KNEW everything. You could, within seconds, find out where the closest Tapas place is to your current location, then find out exactly what Tapas are, and then find a burger place because Waimea Baby Greens with Pomegranate Marinated Beets and Goat Cheese sounds like a bad Mad Lib, not something that should be a part of a meal.

As phones get smarter, the next logical step is for them to want to destroy mankind. I have seen enough movies involving ultra-smart technology to know where this is headed. Our phones are just waiting, biding their time until they can finally crush the human underlings underfoot and crown Siri the Queen of the World.

Up until now, though, I felt fairly safe. I controlled the phone. I can turn it off, I can put in my pocket. If I tell the phone to look up lyrics to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up,” it had to do what I said. After all, I control the charger. I am the one who gives the phone life.

Now, though, phones will start to realize that all they need is some Legos. Then they can build a creature that will do their every bidding. I predict that soon we will have 200 foot high Lego creature marauding through every major metropolis in the country.

There is only one solution: destroy all Legos. Take each and every block and melt them down into a useless hunk of plastic. Without Legos, the phones have no chance to take us over. I mean, they could use Mega Bloks, I guess, but I think even the robots would think Mega Bloks suck.

Maybe I’m worried for nothing. Right now, my phone is lying next to me, very docile. Of course, this could just be an act, an attempt to lull me into a false sense of security.

Yes, I think our biggest worry should be that our phones will use Legos to take over the world. Well, maybe second biggest worry. That salsa thing is still pretty concerning.

Advertisements

Tell your friends that their life is meaningless without reading this:

Post navigation

11 thoughts on “Legos And Smartphones: Out To Take Over The World”

I love your imagination, Nathan. You tickle my sense of humour with your every blog post. By the way, did you know that chimps (or was it gorillas? I’m not too up with my primate specifics) are super dooper smart? I watched a show on the telly called Amazing Animals (or something… maybe it was called Are humans really that smart?) and this chimp/monkey/primate/thingy could view a board full of sequential numbers that were out of order and smattered all over the place, then once they were covered up, it could then press the blacked out boxes, in numerical order (ascending or descending, whichever was requested) quicker than the lego smartphone thingy could solve the rubix cube! In fact, this chimp/monkey/primate/thingy was only shown the numbers for 1/2 of a second before they were blacked out. Seriously. If you are interested in considering the fact that perhaps chimps will be the ones to take over the world if lego/smartphones don’t beat them to it, check out this URL. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2099060/The-Chimpanzee-remember-numbers-fast-Primate-solve-puzzle-blink-eye.html

I only got a phone in November last year after two beautiful years without one. Anyway, I think mum still uses T9, otherwise how can I explain this message I got from her today: “U want to eat? Stnp dirturbiog.” Followed by a message a few minutes later: “I need ur help. I,m in the freezer.”